Alex Bird (second from the left) and his siblings from the Lheidli T'enneh First Nation were among the first students to attend this public school, near Prince George, B.C., in the early 1910s.
(Royal B.C. Museum, Image B-00342, British Columbia Archives)
In B.C., residential school principals sat on public school boards, and some Indigenous children even attended public schools. Understanding such links matters for truth and reconciliation.
An endangered female orca leaps from the water in Puget Sound, west of Seattle.
(AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)
The declining salmon and whale numbers raise a critical question: Is the southern resident killer whale population solely reliant on the abundance of salmon? And, if so, since when?
Climate researchers stress that natural gas bridges can often lead to nowhere as the reliance on natural gas can lock countries into fossil fuels, crowd out low-carbon technologies and risk stranding assets.
(Shutterstock)
Fossil fuel companies are winning the battle on how we talk about natural gas expansion by referring to it as a “bridge fuel” or an essential bridge to the net-zero energy system of the future.
Housing policy-makers should pay attention not only to how much housing is available and how often rental units turn over, but to residential stability and the quality of life that homes and neighbourhoods provide.
(Shutterstock)
Unaffordability is only one type of housing vulnerability that has taken its toll on British Columbians during the COVID-19 pandemic.
British Columbian workers in the public sector, transit and transportation have voted to take job action in recent weeks to fight for their right to earn livable wages.
(Shutterstock)
The discovery of a fossil over 500 million years old reveals new information. Its brain and nervous system are remarkably preserved, filling in some gaps in what we know about arthropod evolution.
Whale art installation at the waterfront in Prince Rupert, B.C.
(Shutterstock)
The investigations of the deaths of three young Indigenous people in northern British Columbia had been inadequate. Justice demands fair and supportive death investigation procedures for all.
B.C. Minister of Mental Health and Addictions Sheila Malcolmson holds a copy of exemption documents that enable British Columbia to decriminalize possession of small amounts of ‘hard’ drugs for personal use. B.C.’s bold experiment will be closely watched as a comparator with other progressive jurisdictions.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck
British Columbia’s bold experiment provides an opportunity to implement more balance in Canadian drug policy, and a more principled withdrawal from the war on drugs.
Chum salmon at the end of their life cycle in Fish Creek, Alaska.
(Andrea Reid)
About 10 million people live in Canada’s earthquake-prone zones. Yet few have practical knowledge of what to do with new early warning system alerts which aim to save lives and protect livelihoods.
A woman and children who were stranded by high water due to flooding are rescued by a volunteer operating a boat in Abbotsford, B.C., in November 2021. The Insurance Institute of Canada forecasts that annual insured losses from natural disasters could increase to $5 billion within the next 10 years.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck
Although insurance is important in natural disaster recovery, government and property owners also play an important role in protecting Canadians against the impact of catastrophic weather events.
Rising flood waters are seen surrounding barns in Abbotsford, B.C., on Nov. 16, 2021.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward
Industrial-sized confinement farming systems pose massive challenges during hurricanes, floods or wildfires, including significant public health, animal welfare and socio-economic implications.
A portion of the Coquihalla Highway near Hope, B.C., is destroyed following heavy rains and mudslides in B.C.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward
Food supply chains had already taken a serious hit by panic-purchasing during the COVID-19 pandemic. The B.C. floods remind us how effective supply chain management planning can help avert crises.
An atmospheric river is a band of warm, moisture-laden air many hundreds of kilometres long and hundreds of kilometres wide. It can dump prodigious amounts of rain over a large area.
Cities in Eastern Canada, like Montréal, are at risk of damage from earthquakes.
(Life-of-Pix/Pixabay)
Some of the worst risks of earthquakes are in a zone running from the Great Lakes to the St. Lawrence River that includes major cities like Toronto, Ottawa and Québec City.
Research reveals a connection between Indigenous languages, bears and their terrain.
(Michelle Valberg)
Genetic analysis of grizzly bear populations in British Columbia has revealed a connection in how bear and human cultures may have responded to the landscape.
Smoke obscures the sun over Prince George, B.C., in 2021.
(Mica Jorgenson)
Smoke has long cast shadows across the skies in the northern hemisphere. Our aversion to smoke has influenced the way we’re willing to deal with the rising risk of wildfires.
Indigenous leadership, community members and allies of Treaty 8 territory of northeast B.C. converge on Parliament Hill in Ottawa to protest Site C hydroelectric dam projecton in 2016. The dam is located on BlueBerry First Nation territory.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick
Is this decision a real ‘bombshell,’ as it has been depicted? Or does it represent an important step towards the implementation of UNDRIP within provincial and federal legal framework?
Smoke from the wildfires taints wine grapes, giving wine an ashy taste.
(AP Photo/Noah Berger)
As wildfires continue to edge closer to towns and agricultural areas, grape producers and wine-makers in the Okanagan must once again deal with this increasingly frequent threat of smoke taint.
Chair and Member from North America of the UN Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (EMRIP) and Professor in Political Science, Public Policy and Indigenous Studies, University of British Columbia